So I just realized I forget to mention Morgan's part in all of this earlier, so just so you guys know, she was on Jack's team.
Tatiana: Okay, I absolutely loved that description. Can I use it?
Little Did You Know: Oh sh*t indeed
Katpet: Sorry, dude. Hayden is gone :(
Guest(1): Ah, so glad you liked it!
Echgrl: Haha, thanks!
Sophia the daughter of Nyx: I just couldn't resist it, and thanks!
Guest(2): You know you'll be back ;)
ShinyMudkipGal: FIRST OFF, HE WAS MY FAVOURITE TOO! SECONDLY, YESSSS THE MARK! MY CAPS LOCK ISN'T STUCK, BUT THIS IS FUN!
Shiikun: #Daniisgonnabesohappy
Reptil: Oh, he will
GirlFish: Not quite yet, but Operative H will certainly get what's coming to him
LooneyAces: RAMPAGING DANNY!
Mimi1012: So many things, Mimi. So many things.
Enjoy!
He was aware of three things, the first of which being the sounds. All of the sounds. The screams that poured from skeletal jaws. The shouts that were probably directed at him, but he paid no attention to. The sound of fighting in the distance, swords slicing through the air, and ecto-guns firing powerful blasts. He was even aware of hundreds of feet, human and ghost alike, pounding against the ground as they ran. But the sound he was most aware of, was the sound of four people crying.
A young girl, trying desperately to keep her sobbing as quiet as possible.
A woman far away, weeping loudly.
A man, also far away, stifling his tears to remain strong for his wife.
And a fourth voice, one that seemed to follow him everywhere he went, letting out pitiful cries of woe and pain for all to hear. This was the voice that haunted him.
Another thing he was aware of, was the sticky liquid covering his suit. He never looked down, but he could feel it. The electric warmth of ectoplasm coating him from head to toe.
The third, was the air of death. He could feel it, the forms of anti-life that were rapidly disappearing. Not just because the bones were crumbling beneath his fingers as he savagely ripped through them, but because he could sense the growing emptiness in the air. It was a strange feeling. One moment there would be an echo of something, certainly not life, and then the next it would be gone, ripped free from its place in the universe and disintegrating into nothing. Certainly not the peaceful slipping away one would associate with the descent into nothing.
And that was all that he remained aware of. His thoughts were lost in a chaotic swirl of agony. His body acted and reacted purely on instinct. His eyes were blinded by a flood of red and rage.
But that didn't matter. Only one thing mattered. Judgement on those who had angered him. The haunting cry rose to a bitter wail, and one of the shouts he had been ignoring cut through the haze of hate.
"Danny, stop!"
He did, and so did the voice that followed him everywhere. Danny froze, one arm outstretched to grab the white clad figure cowering behind Sam and the other, alight with green energy, had halted inches from her face. The blue mist that had been seeping from between his lips dispersed, and his red eyes momentarily flickered green.
"Just stop," Sam's voice was quieter now, and she laid a gentle hand on the arm poised before her face, pushing it away. Danny's wrist twitched, and the energy that had been gathering fired off towards a nearby building, blasting a whole clean through it. His other hand curled into a fist as his blood-coloured eyes fell on the operatives that Sam was trying to protect.
"Danny." Sam pressed her other hand against his cheek, forcing him to look back to her, then gently turned his head to the right. As she did so, he noticed that there were a few other Ghostketeers around them, weapons regretfully raised. Star and Kwan's hands shook as they tried to keep a firm grip on their guns. Sam's finger traced something along his face, from the corner of his eye, to the curve of his jaw, and down to where his jumpsuit clung to his neck.
"They killed him."
Sam blinked in surprise, apparently not have expecting Danny to talk, or at least not expecting his voice to sound so… wrong. It was deeper, and had a greater echo.
"They killed him," Danny repeated. He sounded calm, and that somehow made it worse.
"They didn't kill him," Sam responded, shaking her head.
"I was going to save him, and they stopped me, and he died. They killed him."
"Danny…"
"I said I would protect him, and I didn't. I was supposed to, I should have protected him, but they stopped me. They killed him, he's dead. Theykilledhimtheykilledhimtheykilledhim-"
"Danny."
"-theykilledhimtheykilledhimtheykilledhimthey-"
"DANNY!"
"I FAILED HIM!" Danny shouted, his voice cracking and returning to normal. "I failed him, and it's their fault! He would still be alive, if they had listened to me, if they hadn't stopped me!"
"I know!" Sam shouted back, then bit her lip. Anger flashed in her own eyes as she continued. "I know, Danny. They shouldn't have trapped you in that shield, and they will regret doing so, they probably already do."
Danny noticed a pile of smouldering, twisted metal down the street. The remains of a GIW tank.
"But it's not their fault. It's not anybody's fault. Anyone could have been standing there."
"No, no. It's my fault, all my fault! All mine, all mine-" Danny's building rant was cut off by Sam slapping him sharply.
"Don't say that! It is not. Your. Fault," Sam seethed, and Danny blinked. His eyes returned to their normal green and he started to drop to his knees. Before they hit the ground his vision was filled with white, and he was suddenly kneeling next to Hayden's body. Someone, probably the Ghostketeers, had moved him from the vicinity of fighting. Danny's gaze was turned downwards, roaming across the lifeless form. No longer were his knees bent awkwardly underneath him, or his arms thrown out by his side. But his brown eyes were still open. Danny couldn't meet the dull stare and, with his own gaze fixed firmly on the green stains covering his suit, he reached out and closed Hayden's eyes.
A muffled sob issuing from somewhere in front of him made Danny's head shoot up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the source. Erin was leaning against a telephone pole, knees pulls up to her chest and face buried there. In a flash, Danny was beside her.
"He shouldn't have died," Danny whispered.
Erin sniffed and nodded. "The last thing he said… was that he could pr-protect me. He didn't even stutter."
Erin's voice was muffled by her hair and arms, sounding between deep gasps for breath.
"I heard you guys talking. Heard what you said to him."
"I should have protected him, I'm sorry." Danny hung his head, preparing for Erin's rebuke.
"You shouldn't be," Erin aid quietly. "We all knew something like that could happen we just… we just never thought it could happen to us. You can't be expected to protect everyone."
Danny tentatively felt the emotions radiating off of Erin, and did not find the resentment he had been expecting. She was unbelievably sad, but not angry.
"He was brave, because you told him he could be. When he pushed me out of the way, the first wraith's sword just barely nicked him, and he looked so proud of it, and I was proud of it. You should be proud of it."
Danny looked back to Hayden's body, lying several feet away, and easily saw the thin red line on his shoulder with his enhanced vision. He had to strain to keep his eyes from roaming to the larger wound in the middle of his chest.
"Hayden was brave, Danny. Brave because of you. You can't give up after that, can't lose yourself. Everyone needs you, so you need to be brave because of him." Erin raised her head a little, red rimmed eyes finding Danny's, and he realized that she was comforting him.
"Please, be brave for him," Erin sniffled, rubbing her nose across the back of her hand.
Danny nodded. "I will. Are you going to, um, rejoin us?"
"I'll keep fighting, I have to. Just… I just need this," Erin admitted. Danny nodded again, and rose to his feet, teleporting back to Sam.
"Finally calmed down?" Sam smirked, as if Danny's rampage had been no big deal, but he could see the worry alight in her eyes.
"I… yeah. We need to finish stage one of the plan," Danny said. "It shouldn't be too much longer until we can start phase two."
"Actually, we could start now," Sam motioned to the fighting taking place a ways away from them. Danny followed her gaze, and audibly gasped at what he saw. The entire eastern portion of Kraeva's army had been decimated. Massive pools of ectoplasm were all that remained of the some thousand wraiths that had been there seemingly moments ago for Danny.
"Did I…?"
"Yeah."
"For how long?"
"Twenty minutes, tops."
Danny almost jumped at Tucker's voice sounding close in his ear. He had completely forgotten about the Fenton Phones.
"I did that, in twenty minutes?" Danny's eyes were wide and fearful. He had never used so much power before, and the fact that he had been so angry worried him greatly. For now, his adrenaline was helping him stave off those thoughts, but it wouldn't be long before they would consume him, much as his anger had.
"Have the other GIW made it around to the south side?" Danny asked, searching for the other two tanks.
"Not yet. You only took out the main portion of those wraiths. There are still some towards the east, and the GIW are currently occupied with them."
"Good. Then they probably won't end up meeting with our allies. Where are my parents?" Danny settled comfortably into commander mode, anything to distract his thoughts from what exactly he had just done, what he had been about to do.
"Your dad did notice the commotion, but didn't stop fighting. You sort of took out all of your mom's targets, so most of her and Jazz's teams have gone to help out Jack. I can't see your mom at the moment."
Danny frowned thoughtfully, then switched through the channels on the Fenton Phone until he found the one that Maddie was supposed to be reachable on.
"Mom?"
"Hi, honey! Have you calmed down now?"
Danny cringed at how falsely cheerful she sounded, and suddenly realized that a lot of people were probably now afraid of Danny Phantom. "Yeah. Where are you?"
"Heading east around the shield."
"To the GIW?"
"Of course! Tucker told us there were still a few wraiths left, so I thought you might still need me in position for stage two."
"Yeah, I do. Since I, uh, took care of most of the wraiths, their numbers are getting low enough that we could start now. Are you almost there?" Danny did his best to estimate the number of wraiths on the western side of the shield. He could see a few friendly ghosts fighting off in the distance, which meant that their forces were seriously depleted.
"Just a few more minutes, sweetie."
"Okay. Once your close enough, start prepping the device, then contact me," Danny instructed. Maddie gave a cheerful confirmation, and he switched back to the channel he and Tucker were constantly on. "She's almost in position. I just need to make sure my dad knows, then help weaken the remaining wraiths a little more."
"Cool, dude."
Danny wrapped his arm around Sam's waist and teleported them between Star and Kwan.
"Couldn't we just have walked?" Sam asked, pressing a hand to her head and swaying a little, nauseated by the sudden transfer.
"Sorry," Danny shrugged sheepishly.
"As long as you don't do it again," Sam moaned.
"Maybe just one more time?" Before Sam could answer, Danny had grabbed Kwan's shoulder, and curled the hand he had wrapped around Sam's middle between Star's belt loops.
"Hey, ghost kid, stop right there! You are a wanted spectral entity under the GIW ecto-elimination act, and have now damaged GIW in property, and threatened operatives! You'll be coming with us!" Danny's eyes flashed read as Operative H ran forwards. He lifted his hand from Kwan's shoulder and three thick blasts of ectoplasm shot from his palm. They met the oncoming GIW and sent them flying backwards into a wall, where the ectoplasm bound them to the surface. One of the operatives opened his mouth to shout something else, and the smaller blasts followed, covering their mouths in sticky goo.
"Iudicium tuum habet tamen factum est1," Danny's eyes flashed once more as he spat at the operatives, then his hand returned to Kwan's shoulder and they disappeared in a flash of bright light.
Kwan, Star, and Sam dropped to their knees the moment they were once again on solid ground, resisting the urge to hurl.
"Does that not make you sick?" Sam asked, leaning out of a window in the apartment they had appeared in.
"No, must be a ghost thing," Danny said.
"Please keep it a ghost thing," Sam muttered as she turned back around, but Danny wasn't in the room. She looked to Star and Kwan for an explanation.
"Teleported," Star offered, knowing that it was glaringly obvious. Sam looked out the window she had been prepared to throw up out of and saw that the building they occupied was right above the heart of the remaining wraith forces, where the fighting had not yet reached. The wall of ghostly allies and the grounded Amit Park forces were just about half a mile from meeting. As Sam watched, she started to wonder why the wraiths weren't flying around to attack their human opponents. In the distance, they were obviously combatting Dora and the others while in the air. But the wraiths in the middle of the throng, with no enemies to face, made no such moves to reach the front.
"I need the generator."
Jack yelped and whipped around and his son appeared by his shoulder in a blinding flash. Danny was forced to dodge the instinctive punch that Jack threw. Ultimately, he was glad that his instinct had not been to turn intangible, as that would have little effect when it comes to the Ghost Gloves that enveloped Jack's hands.
"Sorry, Danny. Are you okay?" Jack asked.
Danny grimaced, understanding that his father's question was not just because of the punch he had just barely dodged. "I'm fine, but we're going to start stage 2. I'm getting a few of the other Ghostketeers so that you can keep fighting, and we'll start up the generator ourselves. Mom is taking care of the east side."
Jack plunged a large hand into one of his many jumpsuit pockets, rummaging around for the device Danny requested. When he pulled it out, the halfa found it amazing that there had been no visible sign of the device when it had been pocketed. It was about the size of Jack's palm, which was fairly large in comparison to most other palms, and was dome shaped, with a few blinking lights on top.
"Thanks, Dad," Danny took the device and simply held it, having no mysterious bigger on the inside pockets of his own to deposit it into.
"Be careful, Danny," Jack lowered a heavy hand onto Danny's shoulder, returning the halfa's reassuring smile.
"I'll try," Danny promised, then spun around and dove into the throng of fighting. A sharp cry could be heard, then there was a bright flash, and Danny had presumably teleported away. Jack waited a moment, looking sadly at the spot where he had last seen his son, before returning to the fight.
When Danny and Morgan teleported into the apartment occupied by the other Ghostketeers, Morgan gratefully found a garbage can shoved hastily into her arms and, unlike the others, she was unable to keep the contents of her stomach from rising up.
"Fenton, if you ever do that again, you'll regret teaching me to use anti-ecto weapons," Morgan groaned, but the threat wasn't as effective when her face was hidden in a garbage can. When she raised her head to glare at the halfa, a smile danced across her lips.
"Nice tats," she smirked, arms loosening around the garbage can.
Danny blinked in surprise. "What?"
"On your face. If I lose control like that, do I get them to?"
Sam glared at Morgan while Danny rushed through the apartment, finding the bathroom and stopping in front of the mirror. Thin black lines caressed the left side of his face in a design reminiscent of a bolt of lightning. He raised one of his hands and dragged a gloved figure over the lines and could feel the slight raise to his skin despite his gloves.
Danny quickly transformed back to Fenton and had just enough time to see the black lines turn white before the pain hit him. A short cry burst from his lips before he managed to cut it off, fingers tightening around the porcelain of the sink. With every heartbeat a fresh wave of pain coursed through his body and his legs buckled, forcing Danny to rely wholly on his arms to keep him from dropping. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to will the pain away, but then an image of Hayden, hanging off the blade of a wraith's sword bloomed in the darkness. Danny couldn't stop the torrent of thoughts that flooded his mind.
It's all my fault, all my fault. He's dead because of me. I wasn't fast enough, I wasn't strong enough. I didn't protect him, but I promised I would, but I didn't, but I promised, but I didn't I promised I didn't I promised IdidntIpromisedIdidntIpromisedIdidntIpromised-
"Danny?"
His eyes snapped open, the image of Hayden still in his mind. The door to the bathroom was closed and locked. He didn't remember doing that. He also didn't remember kneeling on the floor, but apparently he was. A throbbing pain in his right leg had Danny panicking again, but he let out a relieved breath when he saw that the pain was caused by a white knuckled hand gripping his thigh tightly.
"Yeah, just a second," Danny called out, his voice surprisingly steady. He rose to his feet, looking in the mirror. The markings were still on his face, but while he has human, they were a pale white, like a healed scar. He splashed some cold water on his face and washed off any blood on his skin, settled his expression into one that exuded calmness, and opened the door.
"You okay?" Sam asked immediately.
"I'm fine, yeah," Danny nodded, showing no sign of the pain that he was still feeling.
"You've used up a lot of power, maybe you should stay human for a while," she suggested.
"I would use another vial of ecto-dejecto, but I'm pretty sure it shattered when I was in the shield," Danny's hand fell to his hip where the syringe should be, but the loop on his belt was empty. Sam gave him a disapproving look at the fact that he had even thought about pushing himself harder, and they headed back out into the living room.
"So what exactly are we gathered here for?" Morgan asked. "We should be out there, shooting stuff."
"Stage two is why we're here," Danny said.
"What is stage two?" Kwan, who was sitting on the edge of the couch, looked up at Danny.
"This." Danny held out his hand, showing them the generator. "It's a shield generator that I made over the past two days. Maddie has an identical one. They have been specially designed so that the shield it generates will not merge with another if they make contact, and it will slowly constrict itself over time without someone having to make adjustments themselves. It also reacts with my Fenton Phone. If I turn it to a specific channel, and speak a certain sentence, the generator will activate the anti-ecto energy within the shield so that it will eliminate any ghosts trapped inside."
"How does it do that?" Star asked.
"It's programmed to react to the voice patterns when I saw a certain sentence, a certain way, and it only reacts to my voice," Danny explained.
"That's cool and all, but what does it have to do with us?" Morgan twirled a strand of blue hair around her finger, looking bored.
"To make sure the shield encompasses most of the ghosts, we have to get it as close to the centre of fighting as possible. Originally it would have been Jack's job to make his way to the centre, assisted by those on his team that had done better during training. But I've decided to change the plan a little. Kraeva hasn't shown up yet, which means I'm not occupied, so I'm the best bet to make it to the centre. But I'll still need help to keep the wraiths back, especially now that I'm going to be Fenton for a while. You will help my fight my way to the middle, while Maddie's and Sam's teams will take over for our ghostly allies, this gives them time to get away before the shield is activated. Maddie is making her way to the wraiths still lingering in the east, and she'll activate the other shield there. Might have already."
"How do you think of all this stuff, Fenton?" Kwan was looking extremely impressed, as if he was only realizing now that it was actually Danny making all their plans.
"Pandora, one of my allies, taught me some military tactics a couple months back." Danny's brow furrowed at the thought of the Greek ghost. He had no doubts that she, and his yeti allies were somehow trapped in the banished lands. Once Kraeva was defeated he would have to find a way to rescue them, if they were okay.
"Mom, are you almost there?" Danny asked, hand to his Fenton Phone.
"Just about. I can see the wraiths and GIW down the block."
"Okay. Tell me once your shield is up."
"Sure thing, Danny! See you later."
"Maddie is basically ready to go, and her generator should be running before we've even reached our own spot," Danny picked the generator back up, and pulled a steel hilt from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, the blade of ectoplasm formed, almost identical to the ones that a few Amity Park citizens were using below them. This one, however, more resembled a real sword, while the others were thin and straight.
"We should hurry. Are you guys all ready?" Danny glanced around at the small group of Ghostketeers. The girl he loved, the boy that used to help bully him on a daily basis, the girl that never would have looked at him twice, and the girl that everyone usually stayed away from.
A-listers and outcasts, working together. Danny couldn't help but smirk as he led them downstairs, and they paused in front of the doors to the apartment building. He looked back at them once more, all of whom now had their weapons raised, Morgan with a manic grin on her face.
"Tonight we dine in hell!" Morgan shouted the quote, hoisting her gun into the air. Danny caught her gaze and grinned, raising his own sword. Kwan, Star, and Sam did the same, shouting at the top of their lungs. Danny kicked open the doors the doors to the building, sending them flying, and the group of teenagers plunged into the waiting wraiths.
So Danny's not too mentally unstable right now, but just wait until all the fighting it done. Oh, man, it's gonna suck to be him
1 Your judgement has yet to pass
'See' you next time!
